base at Swarbacks Minn, an anchorage on the west side of Shetland. On 10 August, de Chair formed the First Division with Crescent, Grafton, Endymion and Theseus; Edgar, Royal Arthur, Gibraltar and Hawke became the Second Division. The Shetland–Faroe gap was watched by the First Division and the Second Division was sent to watch the Orkney–Norway gap. The Edgars were slow in speed and acceleration and had to make frequent returns to port for coaling, reducing each patrol to three ships. During autumn, the weather deteriorated and sometimes was so bad as to preclude boarding ships. The mechanical state of the ships declined, , and soon needing repairs. During October, de Chair was ordered to patrol further to the south during a big operation to protect a convoy of 33 cruise liners transporting the Canadian Expeditionary Force to Britain. On 15 October, while patrolling off Aberdeen in line abreast at intervals, Hawke stopped to collect mail from Endymion then set off at in a straight line to regain position. At Hawke was struck by a torpedo from U-9, capsized and sank. None of the other ships saw the sinking and found out only after U-9 attacked and missed Theseus. The patrol was ordered to head north-west at high speed but Hawke failed to acknowledge the signal. , an extremely fast destroyer, was sent from Scapa Flow to investigate and found a raft with 22 survivors. A Norwegian merchant ship rescued 49 men from a boat and transferred them to a British trawler but 524 members of the crew perished. Before sailing, the captain, Hugh Williams, had visited Crescent and asked de Chair for another two days to make repairs to the engines. De Chair had refused since the ship could still sail at . As Williams left the flagship, he was reported saying On 21 October, Crescent was surprised to be taken under fire by a tanker, north-north-west of Foula. The ship had no identification signs and Crescent replied at , having been damaged by the tanker. The tanker soon caught fire on the deck and sent up a white flag. Due to the sea state, no boarding party was risked and the ship was escorted to Lerwick, where it was found to have been bought by the two months earlier, for service as an oceanic U-boat supply ship. The decrepitude of the Edgars continued to interfere with operations; on